Trail of Greed: Fighting Fraud and Corruption... A Dangerous Game (3 page)

“All your conquests?” I had asked him. “Not all,” he had replied with a grin. “A bit strange to put them all on display,” I said. “It sort of happened by accident,” he replied and then proceeded to explain.

“In fact the whole idea started as a bit of joke years ago. I had a couple of pictures then and I once forgot to hide them when I invited someone back for the night. On that particular occasion the girl stayed for about a week and then left to go back to Australia. A week later I got a parcel through the post with that photograph over there inside it”.

He pointed to the photo of a fun-looking brunette smiling at the camera, perched on the roots of a palm tree on what looked like a tropical beach.

I strolled over and picked it up for a closer look. As I was putting it back I noticed the message scrawled in blue ink on the back “For your collection! – X”.

“So I decided to leave them out permanently and the collection has just ‘kinda grown’ – like Topsy,” he said with a grin. “I suppose I must attract the type of girl that doesn’t have any permanent designs on me so they think it’s rather fun and when they send me photos ‘for my collection’ I stick them up!”

I didn’t mind his collection at all, but I did know that Heather was rather disapproving of it.

“Well, how’s tricks?” he asked, as he sat down, “and what world-shattering event has induced you to put your hand in your pocket to buy your wee brother a meal? It’s you that’s paying, isn’t it?”

“Oh, nothing much. I’ll tell you after we’ve ordered – and, yes, I’ll pay this time.”

We dispensed with the logistics of ordering lasagne and a bottle of wine, and after a bit of small talk – Seen Heather recently? – How’s Oscar? – I decided to plunge in, but not without dipping my foot in the water first to judge the temperature.

“Mike, did Dad ever talk to you much about the time he was in France during the war? He never discussed it much with me but, you being in the army, I wondered if he spoke to you about any of his experiences.”

“Nope – hardly a word. All I know is that he was some kind of a liaison officer with the Resistance and it was a question of living on your nerves non-stop for months. I think he lost a few friends and I just assumed he didn’t want to drag up old, bad memories.”

Or perhaps old good memories, I thought to myself. We had, all three, been very fond of Dad – perhaps the relationship with the boys had been closer because we had had more common ground – sport especially – and he had been an only child and hadn’t been quite so comfortable with girls. I was hoping that Mike’s reaction to the news I was about to tell him would be much the same as mine. I suspected it would.

“Why?” He looked at me thoughtfully, put down his fork and took a sip of his wine. “That’s something we’ve never talked about before – so what’s the reason now? Has something cropped up to do with that?”

“Not something, but someone.” He looked intrigued. “Someone who was out there with him? Whoever it is he must be in his nineties by now. Go on.”

“Well, yesterday I had a visitor – a Frenchman – who said he was over here on holiday and he invited me out to dinner at Fernie Castle. He seemed a pleasant enough guy so I accepted.”

“Very nice too. But how did you manage? You don’t speak much French.”

“Oh, that was OK. He speaks perfectly good English. And shut up for a minute. Don’t interrupt while I tell you what happened.”

As I explained the whole story to him Mike’s face went through a series of expressions which would have done justice to a chameleon.

When I had finished he looked at me thoughtfully. “And you believe him?” “Yes, I do. He seemed perfectly genuine. His story’s perfectly plausible. But the real clincher was the photograph. It’s a smaller version of the same photo that hung on the wall in the parents’ bedroom all these years – the one which we now all have a copy of. How else could he have that photo if not from his mother?”

“And the other photo. What did the girl look like?” “Brunette, good looking. A bit in the style of Mum actually.”

Mike sat back and rubbed the top his head with his hand.

“Wow! The old bugger never told us about this.” “He wouldn’t, would he? He came back to Mum, got married and here we are – all three of us. This man – Pierre Collard is his name – insisted that his mother never found out that she was pregnant until Dad had gone back home and, as she had known he was engaged, she never told him. She probably wouldn’t have known how to contact him anyway. I don’t know about you but I can easily imagine how it happened. If she was in the Resistance and Dad was undercover liaising with them life must have been bloody dangerous. I suppose in circumstances like that you would, let’s say, ‘forge mutually comforting relationships’. You certainly would, that’s for sure!”

Mike didn’t comment. “I’ll bet there are hundreds of similar cases. And probably most of the kids born like that were simply told that their fathers had been killed. Easier for everyone.”

Mike sat back, thinking it through. He took another sip of his wine and put the glass gently down on the table. He looked across at me with a grin.

“So what do we do now?” asked Mike. “I suppose we’ll have to tell Heather.”

“First of all, you’ve got to meet him. He plays golf – maybe it’s Dad’s genes. Anyway I invited him for eighteen holes at Ladybank tomorrow. I thought you might come along and hack your way round the course with us. Gives you an opportunity to meet him and, if your feelings are the same as mine, we’d better cart him over to meet Heather and Oliver.”

Mike was obviously still absorbing the news and only half-listening. He was slowly shaking his head from side to side then a wide smile spread across his features.

“The randy sod,” he said, – but there was a genuine tone of affection in the way he said it, “But then, I suppose . . .” His voice trailed off.

“What was that you said? Golf tomorrow? OK, what time?”

“Eleven. I haven’t told Pierre that I would bring you so it’ll be a surprise for him. It’ll be interesting to see his reaction and you’ll get an opportunity to come to your own conclusion about whether he’s telling the truth or not.”

It would also give me the chance to really see what kind of a man Pierre was. It’s difficult to judge the true personality of someone over a couple of bottles of good solid red wine but on a golf course it’s a different matter.

The way a person reacts to success or adversity is a good pointer to their character. And there is a lot of that in a round of golf. How he reacts on losing a hole, or winning a hole, on missing a three-footer on the last green or on driving two balls in a row into the deep rough are all very good indicators of personality.

We caught up on each other’s news for the rest of the meal – my attempts at gardening, Mike’s recent hike in Skye with Oscar – finished off with a coffee and I settled the bill. We made our farewells on the pavement outside the restaurant. Mike promised to be down by nine thirty the next morning and we’d go over to the course together.

I had arranged to pick up Pierre from the hotel. Mike and I arrived just before ten. I left him in the car and went into the reception to find Pierre. He was waiting in the bar reading the newspaper when I walked in. We greeted each other as recently acquainted friends would.

A “Good morning” and “How was your headache yesterday morning?”.

“I decided that I needed some fresh air yesterday,” he grinned, “So I went off to St Andrews for the day. I also thought I’d better get myself some clubs because I haven’t brought mine with me.”

“You needn’t have bothered. You could have hired some at the club for the day.”

“It’s not a problem,” he replied. “I’ve been meaning to get some new ones for a while.”

I then told Pierre that I had a surprise for him. He looked at me curiously.

“I’ve invited your other half-brother to come and play as well. I thought it was a good opportunity for you to meet him.”

I’m sure that he paused for a split second as he was getting up from his chair but he covered it up with a slight stumbling movement, as if he had caught his thigh on the table. A slight look of concern crossed his face – as if he would rather that I hadn’t – but the moment passed very quickly and his composure returned. It had only been for the briefest of moments but it did make me think that perhaps I should have discussed it with him beforehand.

“You don’t mind, do you?” “Not at all,” he said. “I was hoping I would get to meet the others while I was here.”

We walked out to the car, and as we approached it the door opened and Mike climbed out.

He came towards us with a smile and held out his hand to greet Pierre. What could have been a slightly awkward moment passed off very smoothly.

“Delighted to meet you, Pierre. Bob has told me the whole story – or as much as he knows. I must admit it was a bit of a shock at first but I’ve kind of got used to the idea now. I had always thought I only had one older brother so it’s a bit strange to discover that I am now only third in line for the title.”

“In line for the title? What title?” “Oh there is no title. It’s just an expression. And, even if there was, there would have been no castle or estate that went with it. Come on. Let’s go and play some golf.”

Pierre went over to his car, opened up the boot and proceeded to haul out a brand new golf bag filled with a complete set of Mizuno clubs, a box containing a pair of shoes and a shiny caddy. Mike and looked at each other.

“Blimey, that must have cost you a packet,” I said. Pierre grinned. “I felt like treating myself.” We stowed his gear in my car and set off for what every golfer hopes will be an enjoyable eighteen holes, where every drive goes down the middle of the fairway, where all the putts drop and at least one green side bunker shot ends up in the hole. But it never works out that way!

Conversation was a little difficult as Mike was in front and Pierre in the back of the car so I filled in the time on the short fifteen-minute drive by explaining a bit of the history of the course he was going to play. How, back in the 1870s, the locals of the village had invited Old Tom Morris, one of the father figures of golf, to come over from St Andrews and help to design a short golf course for them. He had cycled the fifteen miles and, in an afternoon, laid out a course of six holes then cycled back home again with his twenty five pounds fee in his back pocket. Later they had added three more holes to make it into a good testing nine-hole golf course where, as a boy, I had learned the rudiments of the game.

Since then it had been extended to eighteen holes and it was now recognized as one of the most testing courses in the county and, whenever the British Open was played at St Andrews, it was used as one of the qualifying courses.

We were lucky as the weather was reasonably clement. Clear blue sky, no sign of rain and hardly any wind. As it was mid-week there were few people on the course and it looked like we would be able to take our time. I had no idea how good a golfer Pierre was but I did know Mike’s game. I think the best adjective to describe it is “flamboyant”. There tends to be a great deal of effort put into his swing but not so much technique. I had given up years ago giving him advice. It just pissed him off. The only time I gave him advice now was if, by the fourteenth, it looked like he had a chance of beating me. That was the moment to make little suggestions to him about how to improve his swing.

It was good harmless fun. Mike was happy if he managed a couple of blistering drives, a few long puts and a par or two. These would then form the major part of the conversation in the bar afterwards. He just liked being out in the open air where he could exercise his love – hate relationship with the little white ball.

My approach was different. I did like to work at the game and apply as much intelligence and course management as my old body was capable of. Golf is entirely up to you. You can blame nobody but yourself if you don’t play well. It doesn’t matter what the conditions are, the challenge is to adapt to them and to play to the best of your ability. That’s what makes the game great, as far as I’m concerned.

Nowadays the old bones and muscles are not as they used to be and I have had to accept that I can’t hit the ball so far. But age and experience have improved my short game which means that I am actually still scoring as well as I used to – even if not quite at the level of Tiger Woods. I still console myself with the thought that, if I do chip in from twenty yards, I know that Tiger couldn’t have done any better.

We unpacked our gear, shoed up and strolled over to the first tee.

“How many strokes do I get?” asked Pierre with a grin. “None.” “Wait a minute. That’s not reasonable. I haven’t played for several months; I don’t know the course and I’ve never played with these new clubs before – and on top of that, over here you guys drive on the left!”

Mike and I looked at each other. “I suppose he is our guest,” I said. “Tell you what. We’ll toss a coin. If you call it right you can have one shot on each nine to use when you want, but you must announce it on the tee before you start the hole. OK ?”

He called heads, won the toss and off we went. Pierre, we discovered fairly quickly, knew how to hit a golf ball. Being physically fairly small and wiry, his swing was compact and he relied on timing for distance. No great heaves of the club, just a smooth swing, a nice wrist movement and the ball flew effortlessly off the face of the club. After a few holes he started to get the hang of his new clubs and he and I settled down to a tight contest. He was three down by the eighth but had caught up his deficit by the time we got to the fourteenth. From then on it was stroke for stroke for the next four holes.

All square on the eighteenth tee. Pierre and Mike had got to know each other during the round and seemed to be getting along fine. I had intentionally left them walking up the fairways together as much as possible. I wanted Mike’s impressions of him to be as little influenced by me as possible. That little hesitation when I had announced that he was joining us still made me wonder a bit. When we had shared our dinner and the wine had been flowing I had perhaps not been as alert as I should have been. Once I had got over the surprise of his story I have to admit I wanted to believe him as I had instinctively liked him. There was still the second reason why he had wanted to meet me and that hadn’t come out yet.